Various messaging technologies can be employed today for delivering messages between mobile stations in a communication network. One of the most widely used messaging technologies is Short Message Service which is commonly known as SMS. SMS messages are usually transmitted over circuit-switched communication networks.
With the advent of packet-switched radio access network such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network and more recently, Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, new forms of messaging services have become available. One of them is Instant Messaging (IM) service which is supported, for instance, by IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks. IMS is a framework which has been developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to provide Internet-based services over packet-switched radio access networks such as GPRS, LTE and WiFi.
Packet-switched radio access networks are now deployed alongside legacy circuit-switched radio access networks. As such, mobile stations are now most often capable of accessing both circuit-switched networks and packet-switched networks. Hence, it is not uncommon for such mobile stations to now support SMS messaging, IM messaging, or both.
Sometimes however, a standalone message, a chat, a group chat or a file transfer request (e.g. an IM message) may need to be interworked to a legacy SMS messaging technology (e.g. as an SMS message) when the recipient mobile station is a mobile station which only supports SMS services (e.g. a legacy mobile station). Interworking of an IM message to an SMS message may also be needed during roaming scenarios during which the recipient mobile station is out of IMS coverage. In such scenario, the recipient would normally be able to receive the IM message but being unable to access the packet-switched radio access network, the recipient mobile station falls back to the circuit-switched radio access network over which only SMS messages can be received.
Still, current IM services supported by packet-switched networks such as IMS networks offer the possibility for the sender to be notified when the transmitted IM messages are delivered or read. For instance, RFC 5438—Instant Message Disposition Notification, provides a framework for such notifications. Most IM services may also provide the IM message sender an indication of the active typing from the recipient, thereby allowing the IM message sender to know that it should expect a reply. Such a feature has been described in RFC 3994—Indication of Message Composition for Instant Messaging.
As communication networks now support many types of mobile stations, some of them capable of receiving various types of messages while others limited to IM messages or SMS messages, mechanisms have been developed and put in place to allow an IM message to be interworked to an SMS message when the recipient is only capable of receiving SMS messages (e.g. the recipient uses a legacy mobile station or is out of IMS coverage). Similarly, an SMS message may also be interworked to an IM message if the recipient is limited to receiving IM messages.
However, when an IM message sent by a sender needs to be interworked due to the fact that the recipient is either using a legacy mobile station or is out of IMS coverage, most, if not all, the advanced notification functionalities, e.g. disposition notification, indication of message composition, etc., provided by the IM service are lost. Hence, when interworking between an IM message and a SMS message is performed, the sender of the IM message has no way of knowing that some of the advanced notification functionalities will not be available for the given message exchange or chat session.
For the sender, there is a perceived service loss and service inconsistency which may negatively affect the overall IM service experience. Still, it remains that setting proper user expectations is an important service aspect for network operators.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide method and system that obviate or mitigate the above described problems.